Spot the Good Result This Week for the British Pound

We have all the main news on the currency markets this week, from the perspective of the British pound. How well – or badly – did it do?

An overview of the currency markets for June 19th – June 23rd, 2017

Firstly, let’s see how the British pound matched up against the US dollar last week. We opened trading on 1.2769, before moving ahead to 1.2796 on Monday evening. However, that improvement was lost the following day, when the pound fell to 1.2656. It soon became apparent this was going to be an up-and-down week, quite literally, and as such it would be a tough one to get any real improvement in. And as we suspected, Friday’s closing rate noted a downward trend, taking the pound to 1.2724 against the US dollar. The losses could have been worse, however.

Next stop is the euro, where the pound began trading on 1.1434 this time. We experienced a different pattern here, though, as the first two days saw falls that took us to 1.1345 by Tuesday night – far from being the best start we might have hoped for. We moved up to a better 1.1388 rate on Wednesday, before dropping back once more the day after. Friday saw an improvement, but it was too little, too late for the pound, as we stalled on 1.1388 at the close of the week.

Our third stop is the Hong Kong dollar, and the British pound opened trading here on 9.9605. The pattern for the week would follow that seen against the US dollar, too, as the rises and falls provided a familiar outcome. We did get a good start though, rising to 9.9808 on day one, which gave us a cushion we hoped would come in useful as we progressed. Unfortunately, the second day saw a drop to 9.8720, which left us a far bigger mountain to climb. By Friday night, the pound was lower overall across the week, stalling on 9.9250.

The pound opened on 1.7656 against the New Zealand dollar, and here we followed a pattern we had seen against the euro already this week, instead of adhering to the one seen against other dollar currencies. This meant the first two days did not go our way, and that took the pound back to 1.7487 against the Kiwi dollar. While we did manage a couple of better days on Wednesday and Friday, they were not enough to lead the pound to finish on anything better than 1.7476.

Finally, could we do something better against the Australian dollar, or would we lose ground here as well? We did have a different pattern here, with a rise from 1.6789 on day one to 1.6802 that same night. We then had the one drop we would experience all week, falling back to 1.6647 on Tuesday. That was quite a drop though, so could we regain those losses by Friday? The answer was yes, as we finished strongly in this part of the world – rising to 1.6814 overall this week.

Notable events in the world of currency

A slight drop against the Canadian currency

A marginal drop was seen against the Canadian dollar, as the pound opened on 1.6884 and closed a few days later on 1.6836.

More of the same against the Swiss franc

Here too, the pound did not achieve much this week. Instead, it opened on 1.2446 before falling to 1.2358.

More encouraging results against the Icelandic krona

Here, at least, the pound managed to climb from 128.978 to 131.804.

So, it was an interesting week all told on the currency markets. There were a few more solid results for the British pound, but you needed to go looking for them if you were to locate them. On the whole, the performance put in by the British currency was far from a strong one, but it remains to be seen whether the results were a blip, or whether we will see better news coming our way next week.